On Quest for a Digital Renaissance - Tag - PowerThis blog is about a Second digital Renaissance. Economics, security, basic innovation processes etc. needs to be revisited in the light of digital networking to incorporate re-empowerment of citizens and designing-in resilience and re-creating the drivers of progress of society.2018-03-15T12:25:52+01:00Stephan Engbergurn:md5:41096DotclearWe need a Second Renaissanceurn:md5:561435621a71017eb4f5b7a9604948252014-09-03T10:36:00+02:00Stephan EngbergAboutEconomicsEmpowermentIdentificationPowerRenaissanceState <h2><strong>The first Renaissance</strong></h2>
<p>was about freeing the world from religious superstition where some Bible,
Koran or Priest is assumed to tell people was is right and what is law. The
religious dictatorships of the pre-Renaissance best exemplified by the Holy
Inquisition and the Conquering and enslavement of colonies with military and
priests side-by-side. Various alliances between the Church and dictatorships
brought suffering on everyone on a enormous scale,.</p>
<p>Through science, experiments and rationality, citizens was empowered to
think for themselves, revolt and act for the betterment for mankind. This
brought forth a revolution of democracy and free markets that can be said to
culminate with the Internet where all mankind can have access to all knowledge
almost instantly. It peaked with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man" hreflang="en">Francois Fukuyama´s claim in 1989 of &quot;The End of History&quot;</a> calling for
the ultimate victory of democracy and market over dictatorship.</p>
<p>It did, however, not eliminate religious superstition. Worse - was Fukuyama
wrong - it did not free humanity from the rapidly increasing abuse of
pseudo-science for ultimately the same purposes that the first Renaissance was
trying to free mankind from.</p>
<h2><strong>The second Renaissance</strong></h2>
<p>is also abut empowerment. It is about freeing the world from scientific
superstition where some model or formula is able to or should tell the citizen
what is right and how to behave. The dark side of the Internet and natural
sciences turned out to be the ultimate of totalitarian regimes whether built on
Command &amp; Control bureaucracy and economics, technically enforced cartels
or Google style behavioral winner-takes-all market controls.</p>
<p>There are no pure democracies and most of the former &quot;free societies&quot; are
far down the grey-scale as the systems have grown unstable - intoxicated with
the power of the Internet making it possible to enforce non-legitimate
interests on citizens and organizations while technically also ensuring they
abide to dictate.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Authoritarian regimes</strong> can profile each citizens ensuring
that they act and think according to a defined ideal - whatever that may be.
The divergent citizens and employees will get detected early and their
re-education to the &quot;right path&quot; automatically controlled and constantly
supervised. In such a society, there is no democratic debate except what the
state deems beneficial to maintain the illusion and pseudo-legitimacy of power.
The involved will have no problem convincing themselves that this is necessary
for stability, national security, anti-crime and other anti-social behavior.
They will even create an atmosphere of constant fear to ensure compliance.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Bureaucratic regimes</strong> can through technology dictate
processes according to their design. Alternatives cannot exist and they will
ensure all sub-systems feed their monitoring and plans for a &quot;better life for
everyone&quot;. And they will have an endless demand for intimate profiling of
citizens to feed their &quot;Research&quot; and Command &amp; Control models.
Alternatives and UN-planned innovation will not be possible as technology
structures will not permit these. The involved have not problems convincing
themselves of their own superiority, neutrality, the effectiveness of
centralized control and how irrational citizens needs supervision to do what is
right for themselves. They will create an atmosphere of spin claiming
everything they do is good and blasting every case into proof of the
incompetence of citizens.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Commercial cartel structures</strong> can through technology and
pseudo-science dictate markets according to their design. Alternatives cannot
exist as they cannot be interoperable and new innovative competitors and better
solutions are effectively prevented. Especially the role as gatekeeper to the
digital networks are enforced through technology standards the strip citizens
of control through identification and dictate a choice of Lord between cartel
members.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A few <strong>commercial winner-takes-all structures</strong> will operate
a structures where every transaction increase their power in the next
transaction as they own the ability to link and apply controls. When these
structures pass a certain threshold, power shifts from market participants into
the infrastructure market makers as participation will become license to
operate.- if you don't comply you cannot get access to market. These structures
will ensure all are accomplices and get a small fraction of the power profit.
They will do their best to keep up the illusions of competition and choice even
though there is none and markets are turning into gardened monopolies where the
infrastructure players dictate their profits and all society suffer. These
structure force commoditization in products and services as they feed on the
illusion of competition but almost eradicate innovation. As a result almost all
providers will see their profits disappear in cut-through prize competition
with little chance of innovating themselves out of problems as all novelties
are rapidly copied and cartel standardization structures prevent major
innovations.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Large-scale criminal</strong> organizations prosper in this world
destabilizing power concentration. They will not only be tolerated but created
as the source of fear to justify the centralized powers and blame of more
covert actions. But even without the acceptance of the powerful. The near-total
lack of security of dis-empowered citizens, commoditisized companies and
single-point of state organizations makes them easy targets and - through
identity theft - useful to hide behind.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>These destabilizing power structures are worst when the <strong>feed from
each-other</strong>. E.g. when NSA and the similar in China and Russia create
and feed from Commercial cartel structures such as GSM, EMV etc. requiring
these to strip citizen security through standards. Or when the Bureaucratic
regimes and pseudo-democracies rig elections through winner-takes-all entities
engaged in political profiling and vote selling through systemic behavior
manipulation.</li>
</ul>
<p>These mechanisms are <strong>far from showing their worst</strong> as we see
smart-phones, biometrics, elimination of cash, cloud and Internet of Things
turning into systemic surveillance and control of citizens by both the direct
commercial providers and indirectly state structures utilizing the commercial
controls for bureaucratic and authoritarian purposes.</p>
<p>Characteristic is that the neo-classical economic models are almost blind to
these structures and the subsequent damages. The assumptions of market has
become their illusion as they do not see or model how power is exercised and
how value is destroyed and growth prevented as people are adapted to systems
instead of resources and processes adapted to real needs..</p>
<p><strong>We are not heading for trouble, we are already deep in
trouble</strong> as the destabilization process continues to escalate in many
ways already exploding into social unrest, conflicts and crisis even if
political institutions try to create illusions to maintain some order and
structure. The events of 2001 and subsequent military actions, the Financial
crisis of 2008, the Snowden revelations and the emergent geopolitical conflicts
are far from over - they are going to get a lot worse and how we act will have
a profound impact on future generations. Problems such as over-population,
pollution and resource depletion are simple and easily solvable in comparison
to social power and market structures gone destabilizing.</p>
<p>What is essential to understand is that all these problems are really caused
by the first renaissance focus on rationalizing the world without ensuring that
the social sciences evolved to say what we need to remain within the realm of
personal space and choice and to dictate these principles on technical design
and standards. Naive political ideologies</p>
<h4>The second Renaissance is about a return to Empowerment</h4>
<p>Through evolving social sciences we need to understand the problems and
provide us with the education, scientific, technological and technical means to
detect and prevent the problems.</p>
<p>In reality most of the problems can be condensed into one <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/sites/digital-agenda/files/Stephan.pdf" hreflang="en">single problem and related solution</a>. Both the cause and
solutions are closely related to HOW we digitize society.</p>
<ul>
<li>Most of the <strong>power emerge from identification of Citizens</strong>
when entering the digital networks and participating in society process. This
is both the main source of destructive power and the main source of abuse of
power.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Solutions simply has to eradicate digital identification</strong> -
or in technical terms the ability to link unrelated transactions with the same
citizen - as that will re-empower citizens relative to to the destabilizing
power structures and provide means for gradual recovery as historic data cannot
be abused to control the future and citizens while society processes and value
chains will - once again - be forced to adapt to individual needs and the best
providers rewarded with the profit of serving real needs instead of
non-legitimate interests in private or public infrastructure.</li>
</ul>
<p>I remain defaistic optimistic. Meaning that in the short term, I fear that
our institutional structures are more a part of the problem and knowing very
well from history that each age has a tendency to live up to its most sinister
potential. But also that - in the longer term - humanity has a tendency to
raise to the occasion when it is most needed - yet often only out of great
suffering trying to prevent this from happening again.</p>
<p>We will measure success on the time from the emergence of Internet to when
citizen can enter into even the most complex public sector services without
ever becoming identifiable towards a server and power structure. And hoping
that the suffering in the meantime can be kept to a minimum</p>
<p>Stephan Engberg, September 2014</p>